A new teaser for Ready Player One explores the influence of Steven Spielberg on Ernest Cline's novel, and the director's own views on the future that the author presents.
RELATED: Ready Player One Author Ernest Cline Confirms Plans for Sequel
The featurette opens with clips from Spielberg classics, including Jaws, Jurassic Park and Raiders of the Lost Ark, before showing footage from Ready Player One.
"I could not have written Ready Player One if I had not grown up on a steady diet of Steven Spielberg movies," Cline says. "It would have been a different story, or I might not have written it at all. His work is woven into the fabric of my life."
RELATED: Ready Player One: Every Pop-Culture Callout in the New Trailer
Spielberg offers his own praise for the novel, saying, "When I read Ready Player One, it was the most amazing flash forward and flashback at the same time. I suddenly saw a future that Ernest Cline, the writer of the book, envisioned. It wasn't that far away from what I think is going to happen someday. There's a dystopian society, and the fabric of our economy is crumbling. It's a good time to escape, so virtual reality will be a super-drug... Ernest Cline is such a visionary, and I think has seen the future before any of us possibly could even imagine it."
The teaser comes after Warner Bros. released a new TV spot for the movie centered on James Halliday, the creator of the film's virtual reality OASIS.
Directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the 2011 sci-fi novel by Ernest Cline, Ready Player One stars Tye Sheridan as Wade Watts/Parzival, Olivia Cooke as Samantha Cook/Art3mis, Ben Mendelsohn as Nolan Sorrento, and Mark Rylance as James Halliday. The film arrives in theaters on March 20.